As a youth, Noah Levine was incarcerated several times. His first book, Dharma Punx, details teenage years filled with drugs, violence, and multiple suicide attempts—choices fuelled by disillusionment with American mainstream culture. His substance abuse started early in life—eventually landing him in a padded detoxification cell in juvenile prison. It was in this cell where he hit "an emotional rock bottom" and began his vipassana practice "out of a place of extreme drug addiction and violence". While incarcerated, he saw for the first time how the practice his father taught him gave him the
|